


gopala, giridhara, kamsari

by toujours_nigel



Category: Hindu Religions & Lore
Genre: Gen, Infanticide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:22:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23157769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toujours_nigel/pseuds/toujours_nigel
Summary: Five steps to make a hero: first, pin a god to this suffering earth.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11
Collections: Rangabhumi Round Two: An Indian Mythology and Lore Fanfic Exchange





	gopala, giridhara, kamsari

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weaslayyy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weaslayyy/gifts).



Seven sons ride on Vasudev’s shoulders that night, the battered dead clinging to the living, easing open doors, muffling the clashing of chains. Kirttimat and Sushena slip over the eyes of the ferryman resting on his oars in the torrent. In the Yamuna Bhadrasena and Udayin wrap their ghastly skin over Krishna’s limbs, sealing him away from the covetous waves till the poisonous water sloughs them away. Bhadradeha falls to the river’s longing spirit, youngest and clinging closest to life. Vasuki plucks Rijudasa gently into immortality. Vasudeva steps into Braj with the last of his sons shivering in his arms.

-

When Putana puts him to her breast, all Krishna wants is food: an indiscriminate drinker undaunted by strange arms, strange nipples, poison flooding his mouth in lieu of milk. Like a swan leaving water behind in a mixed bowl, he pulls sustenance into himself even from venom, as he once found honey in Mahadev’s ashen kisses. He sucks down poison and delves deeper, licks blood out of the wounds left by his seeking teeth: when the arms around him slacken he raises his hands to hold her in place, screams out hunger when the blood, too, slackens and grows thick.

-

Later, when his brother is rubbing rough warmth into his shuddering body, he will explain that the mountain weighed nothing at all, that the staff with which he herds his lowing cattle is often heavier of an evening. He could hold up the mountain a week or a year: he can slip back into a god’s skin to hold it balanced on the tip of the smallest finger of his galaxy-swallowing hand. Only his human hands can wipe away tears, his human mouth spout nonsense to draw forth smiles from grieving hearts. His jaw aches from it, his wrists hurt. 

-

Akrur comes and his father is not his father. Akrur speaks and his mother’s love is kindness that must be acknowledged with gratitude. Akrur argues and every mouthful of butter skimmed from brimming pots brands him an unrepentant thief, every home only the habitation of his distant kin, every day he spends among them a dereliction of duty. Akrur smiles and the groves of his heart are a roaring wilderness, the Yamuna the thinnest stream parched by summer, his childhood woodchips to fuel the fire of revenge. Akrur bows and Krishna is a prince in exile, lost without his people.

-

Kamsa the mind behind every monster of Krishna’s life, Kamsa the king who cares only to strip his people of the softnesses that make life bearable, Kamsa who imprisoned his parents, Kamsa has his brother’s eyes that Krishna has seen gazing at him with love all his life. Kamsa fights like his brother fights, confident in his own strength. Kamsa laughs like Krishna himself laughs with violent joy, once, and then falls silent with Balabhadra’s hands locked around his snapped neck. Blood rushes from his mouth and paints the white sand as his nephews’ blood once painted dank dungeon walls.


End file.
